Padres pound Haren, earn split with Nats

Visiting pitcher Dan Haren and local naysayers came out the worse Sunday at Petco Park, where those who might've once preferred that the veteran right-hander startfor the Padres against the likes of the Washington Nationals would've proven badly mistaken. Pitching instead for the Nats in the finale of a four-game series that wound up split, Haren was the hard-hit loser in a 13-4 Padres win, getting both pinged and pummeled in the process.

"The name of the game is to put guys on base, put pressure on the pitcher," said first baseman Yonder Alonso. "I felt like we did that a lot today."

Fifth-inning home runs by Will Venable and Kyle Blanks not only provided punctuation to Haren's tough afternoon, but spotted Padres counterpart Andrew Cashner a five-run lead. The way Cashner was handling Washington -- he struck out six in his 6 2/3 innings -- even that was overkill.

The Padres were even rougher on the Nats' bullpen, exploding for another five runs in the seventh on a succession of hits by Alonso, Alexi Amarista, Everth Cabrera and Venable, plus Nick Hundley's sacrifice fly. Alonso added a solo homer -- his sixth of the season, the 14th of 15 Padres hits on the day --off Drew Storen in the eighth.

Between all the hits, the walks, an error and and the pitch off Blanks' body, the Padres had 22 batters reach base against one of baseball's preeminent staffs.

"That was a perfect day right there," said shortstop Everth Cabrera, who had two hits, two runs batted in and three stolen bases. "Everybody's swinging the bat really good right now, seeing the ball really good. Everybody's not trying to do too much, just trying to hit singles, and the ball is jumping off the bat."

Nine of the hits were off Haren, who was among the names most often mentioned among free agents the Padres didn't sign in the offseason to improve the rotation, an area where the Padres seemed most needy. He priced himself right off San Diego's wish list, eventually signing a one-year deal with the Nationals for $13 million. That the Padres didn’t land any of the outside talent available became a major basis of criticism, especially after the poor-pitching Padres got off to a wretched start.

Very much a part of the uncertainty -- indeed, the overall sense of instability -- regarding the Padres rotation was Cashner. Over the winter, he’d suffered a serious hand injury in a hunting mishap, leaving huge questions over how well he’d recover from the latest in a long line of health setbacks.

As it turned out, Cashner’s shown himself to be both a quick healer from the knife wound and an effective starter since working his way back via the bullpen. With his sixth start, Cashner improved his record to 3-2. Conversely, the loss dropped Haren under .500 at 4-5.

"I felt I could've executed a little better in a few situations," said Cashner. "I thought when I needed to make a pitch today to stop them from scoring, I made it, (except for) that changeup I hung down the middle that went for a (Ryan Zimmerman) home run."